Our Priorities

Last Best Chance

A gripping docudrama aired on HBO about the threats posed by loosely secured nuclear weapons and materials around the world

Challenge

How
can we create vivid connections for general audiences between nuclear terrorism
and the policies that need to be changed?

Action

Create
a docudrama that accurately portrays how a terrorist could acquire nuclear material
and bomb-making technology.

Results

Hailed as a “wake up call,” Last Best Chance aired on HBO and continues
to be used in educational settings.

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Last Best Chance is a gripping docudrama starring actor and former senator Fred Thompson about the threats posed by loosely secured nuclear weapons and materials around the world. NTI produced the program, which aired on HBO, as part of its public education mission.

Following the attacks of September 11th, the 9/11 Commission warned that al-Qaeda had been seeking a nuclear bomb for more than 10 years and urged governments to do more to take the threat off the table.

Last Best Chance, produced in 2005, underscores the stakes in a dramatic depiction of how a terrorist organization could realistically plan and implement the acquisition of nuclear material and bomb-making technology. The plot: al Qaeda operatives get their hands on nuclear materials which they use to make three crude weapons. Governments around the world discover clues to the plot and race to try and stop the terrorists.

The film, produced with funding from NTI, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, aims to heighten public awareness of the threat of unsecured nuclear material and the real possibility of nuclear terrorism. It was hailed by 9/11 Commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton as “a wake-up call for America and the world.”

As NTI co-chairman Ted Turned noted, “when people are moving too slowly to respond to a danger, one option is to make it more vivid. Seeing the danger is the first step to reducing the risk.”

"Last Best Chance" was produced with support from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, with additional funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.